“Don’t!” she said. “I haven’t been true to my ideals. I—I sold them, David!”
She was in his arms when she said it, and the bachelor maid was quite lost in the woman.
“I’ll never believe that,” he said loyally. “But if you did, we’ll buy them back—together.”
* * * * *
Penelope was good to them. It was a full half-hour before she professed herself satisfied with the mechanical piano-toy; and when she was through, she helped the woman caretaker to shut the Venetians with clangings that would have warned the most oblivious pair of lovers.
And afterward, when they were free of the house, she ran ahead to the waiting auto-car, leaving Kent and Elinor to follow at a snail’s pace down the leaf-covered walk to the gate. There was a cedar hedge to mark the sidewalk boundary, and while it still screened them Kent bent quickly to the upturned face of happiness.
“One more,” he pleaded; and when he had it: “Do you know now, dearest, why I brought you here to-day?”
She nodded joyously.
“It is the sweetest old place. And, David, dear; we’ll bring our ideals—all of them; and it shall be your haven when the storms beat.”